impulsereader | (no subject)

“Now that we’ve untangled that, do you shoot, John? I’ll be gathering a party to go out tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t usually do it for sport.”

“Come out with us anyway. We’ll be a jolly group and it’s sure to be better than whatever else is on this early. There hasn’t been enough time for resentment to build up yet.”

John glanced at Sherlock who shrugged at him. “I will apparently be rehearsing each morning in the solarium. Unless you’re planning on auditing that activity, suit yourself.”

“Just make sure to give me proper notice for the bit where you tutor the children in something.”

Sherlock laughed. “Yes, all right. You’ll be joining my science tutorial this year; duly noted. Will you also be participating in the lively debate which Mycroft will moderate wherein the gestational voting public of the extended Holmes family discuss transport, energy sources and digital communication as they relate to the future infrastructure of Britain?”

John blinked. “No, probably not,” he allowed.

-------

As I'm writing this I'm really struck by the fact that John doesn't have family to rely on.

So, per the above, I'm still on the hunt for an (in)appropriate experiment for Sherlock to do with the kiddies. I'm wondering if building rockets and setting them off might be good. I was thinking I wanted it to be like a normal science fair project - but twisted slightly because Sherlock would pick an experiment that he thinks would be useful to the kids. I mean, no one actually needs a baking soda volcano - except the kids don't have much occasion to determine if a substance is blood or not - whoops! I don't know. I was looking at some of the experiments Zack and Hodgins did on Bones, and that's an interesting take too. Sherlock would find it plausible that the kids might one day need to know if a woodchipper could chop up a body. I don't know where this should go.

Right - so it's been pointed out that snobby relatives would turn up their nose at John - at least before he bags all the birds at the shoot - so I need to know a little more about what sort of schooling he would have experienced. Looking into meta and found some really interesting things.

ETA - I think I've determined that the relatives can be disapproving based solely on the fact that John didn't attend a public school - Eton et al? Does that sound right to anyone who's wandered round?

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This is looking so good! I wonder if Sherlock has gone and procured a dead pig (and maybe other dead animals, like a cat or something) to do a range of forensic exercises with lividity, rates of decay at varying temperatures and things like that. Maybe he's got multiple dead animals for comparative studies on time of death.

And the kids are all "OMG KITTY!" and are turned off pork for life because he tells them that pig flesh and human flesh have some similar characteristics, and then he can't work out why the nine year old is *crying* because Sherlock did an autopsy on his own pet rabbit when he was nine and he was only upset straight after Kublai Khan died, but the autopsy was *fascinating* and he learned so much. There's no understanding children.

And maybe when he's told it' unsuitable for kids, he concedes that dead things may not be good, so he decides to replicate his studies on cigar and cigarette ash. So there are these kids in a room full of smoke from these contraptions he's set up to 'smoke' the items and produce ash (Well, of *course* i'm not going to get the children to *smoke* them) and when they're all coughing and crying from the poisonous levels of passive smoking, Sherlock is banished to the stables.

May not be what you're looking for, but i'm fairly certain he shouldn't be left alone with children. What he thinks is fascinating and educational is probably terrifying.

LOLing to death!

Yes, one aspect of Sherlock does the smoking experiment. Not in this fic, but of course he does somewhere!

I really like the decomposing animals though, and that is doable. There was an exhibit at our Nature Museum a few years ago that focused on CSI techniques and they had pigs in various states of decay on the grounds; part of the exhibit was a scientist taking groups out and giving a bit of a lecture.

(Of course, then I started wondering what John would be like with kids, and realised he may be only marginally better than Sherlock. Adrenalin junkie, soldier, bachelor at 40, Harry doesn't appear to have kids: what experience does he have with children? He's knows better than to teach them to strip down and reassemble a firearm, but what on earth would *he* try to teach them? Emergency first aid maybe, and ends up accidentally telling them about emergencies he's treated, and keeps finding himself talking about trauma wounds and having to stop and realising he doesn't have any normal stories either...)

John with children. This may germinate something - not sure yet. Interesting meta here...

My new purpose in life is to fling plot bunnies at you, vigorously, from a distance.